All This Could Be Yours: A Novel

CHAPTER TWO

Tessa had worried about questions like that, even before the book was published. She'd hesitantly broached it with Sadie Bailey at one of their first meetings, asking her agent for advice on how to handle them.

"I don't like talking about my childhood," Tessa had explained. "Or my parents. Or being a teenager. My book is not about me. It's about inspiring other people—women—to stand up for themselves."

Sadie had commiserated, listening unjudgmentally, her years of babysitting needy authors revealed in her patient consideration of Tessa's concerns.

"There are ways to handle questions you don't want to answer," her agent said. "Try to finesse, give an answer that's question-adjacent, and then take another question. People are inquisitive, and they're attempting to get to know you, as they would a friend. But you don't need to 'let' them. Not unless you want to." She'd paused, as if considering whether to go on. "And you probably don't want to."

Sadie had mistaken Tessa's silence for fear. "Don't worry, darling," she'd said. "Your only responsibility is to write fabulous books. But whatever you want to keep private, you keep private."

Her agent had swiveled in her black chair, eyeing Tessa up and down. Then she'd pushed the sleeves of her creamy cashmere sweater to her elbows and leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

"Except from me." Sadie had laced her fingers in front of her. "Look, Tessa. Private is private, personal is personal. But..." She'd paused. "You and I have a contract. If there's something damaging or untoward that would materially affect this book or this agency or Waverly Publishing or anything connected with this book in any way, I'm not even going to say the specific words out loud, that I need to know."

"Oh, I—sure."

"But I'm going to say this, once, because it's in our contract—your contract—with Waverly Publishing. You guaranteed that there is nothing that you have ever done that could put the publisher in a bad light, put your book or yourself in a bad light, nor have you hidden anything that would be detrimental to sales. And that you would take responsibility—indemnify them—if anything unacceptable is revealed. It's called moral turpitude." Sadie had fiddled with a big black pen on her desk, spinning it on the glossy surface. "This is a business, darling, I don't need to tell you. Oh, everyone loves terrific books and talented authors and the joy of the craft, but there's one unavoidable bottom line. It's all about the money."

"Oh, I know. I—"

Sadie had stopped the pen, leaned forward, her eyes hardening.

"So if you harm their bottom line, you'll pay, not them. All that advance money, all those promises, everything you've dreamed of. Your career. Gone. With no possible recovery. And everyone might be sad, and disappointed, but it won't matter. When you signed on the dotted line to write two books, that was the deal. So." Sadie flipped a palm, as if to dismiss the annoying financial calculations. "It's my job to tell you. Now I have."

"Of course. Nothing to worry about." Tessa remembered answering, Annabelle-confident, as if it were true. "And as for the personal questions, I can handle them."

"Good." Her agent had given that Sadie Bailey nod, that single dismissive dip of her head that indicated the subject was closed.

Now, at the podium in Indianapolis, Tessa pretended to be pondering her answer about whether she had a traumatic childhood. Finally she smiled, as if rueful.

"It depends, doesn't it? On what you mean by traumatic. I was an only child, and I remember thinking it was terrible that my mother wouldn't let me wear lipstick when I was twelve, even when everyone else did. Nor would she let me thumbtack my Backstreet Boys poster to my bedroom wall." She paused, trying to look nostalgic. "It certainly felt traumatic then, but I assume that's not what you're talking about."

The silence felt infinite, the event on pause, as Tessa walked the tight-rope.

"Seriously," she went on, wanting to respect the questioner, not make her feel dismissed. "I agree that childhood drama, or trauma, has led to some spectacularly relatable novels, and we can feel authors almost heal on the page. But in my case, it's just not—relevant."

She gave her own version of the Sadie Bailey nod, then pointed to a woman near the front, flowered blouse and cabled cardigan. But the first woman kept talking.

"Even the deal with the devil Annabelle makes? Intercepting the memo, snaking the job from her male colleague? She says, Feeling guilty is simply another excuse for being weak. Do you believe that?"

"Well, again, that's Annabelle talking." Tessa shrugged, embracing the impossibility. "I seem to have created a main character who makes her own decisions."